Star Wars work in progress You Became to Me

[polgarawolf]

Twenty-sixth part of a WIP
Title: You Became to Me (as suggested by avari_maethor)
*Pairing: Mainly Anakin/Obi-Wan with some mention of Padmé
Rating: Fairly PG-13ish now, but inevitably at least an R (?)
Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely boys from Star Wars, more's the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone . . .
Summary: This is the one thing Darth Sidious never saw coming: a minor incident of collateral damage with repercussions that can potentially utterly undo all of his schemes
*Author’s Note: 1) Please see most previous author's notes and warnings.
2) The scene that wouldn't all fit in the previous chapter posting continues immediately below!
3) The last scene wouldn't all fit here so it continues immediately in the next chapter posting!


If it were still possible for General Grievous to experience real pleasure - and to actually be physically capable of forming facial expressions any longer - then he might have smiled, at the thought. But he is no longer capable of feeling pleasure, and he is certainly not able to make his immobile cyborg face - little more than a mask of bleached ceramic armorplast, stylized to evoke the impression of a bare, bleached humanoid skull, built to make the most of his reptilian yellow-gold eyes and carefully fitted in place around the preserved remains of his Kaleesh brain - form true facial expressions. However, Grievous is still quite capable of feeling satisfaction, and contemplation of a way to see to that the fulfillment of his one true goal in life - the humiliation and destruction of his most hated enemies and the two organizations most directly responsible for the perpetuation of their hateful kind - will become inevitable, regardless of the continuance of his own life, gives rise to a certain gloriously hate-filled gloating sort of primal satisfaction that not only approximates but clearly surpasses anything so mundane and petty as mere pleasure. In fact, it is a source of joy - if it is in any way appropriate to equate the emotion of joy, as felt by beings of flesh and of spirit, with the overwhelmingly adrenaline-fueled and all but euphoric sensation, as experienced by a hybridized being much more machine than flesh or spirit, of eminent gratification resulting from the contemplation of an orgy of pain, death, and destruction.

The notion might seem repugnant, even perverted, to beings of frail flesh and spirit, but to Grievous the idea shines with a coldly logical sort of beauty, in the sense that beauty and truth are often thought (though largely by biologicals, to be sure) to be one and the same thing. After all, as he exists, now, hate is the sole force that drives him and rage is the one fuel that powers his hate; thus, the contemplation of his purpose, his goal, the target of all his hatred and the cause of all of his rage, is as close as Grievous can ever get to pleasure, any longer. It approximates joy because it allows him to dwell upon thoughts of the many gloriously different possible ways of violation and eventual annihilation of that target, that goal that is his true purpose. It surpasses joy because joy is an extraneous emotion, a sensation both unnecessary and unhelpful to the actual pursuit of that goal, while gloating ever so lovingly aids in the cultivation of more and more rage, which in turns leads to a greater and stronger hatred. Grievous could almost, in the most purely abstract sense, find it within him to comprehend the need that so many biologicals feel to cultivate such an ultimately wasteful and ultimately pointless emotion as gratitude, while in the grips of such a powering and powerful sensation. However, it is doubtful that Raith Sienar would appreciate such a gesture, originating from such a source as the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies of the Separatists - and now also, by default, given the defeat and destruction of Count Dooku, the de facto head of government of the remains of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

After all, Raith Sienar is - unlike Sidious, Count Dooku, all of the other various tools and Dark Adepts of the Sith Lord and his now former apprentice, and the sundry CIS officials and actual Separatists - neither a man who despises and wishes to destroy the Jedi Order nor who feels the need to topple the government of the Galactic Republic. Instead, Sienar is that most potentially dangerous creature of all: a bored man of sensational intellect and talent, thoroughly in love with money and his own comforts and pleasures, and in the final analysis, utterly amoral when it comes to the pursuit of said money, comforts, and pleasures. Grievous is well aware of the fact that Raith Sienar is single-mindedly and ruthlessly devoted to the pursuit of money, just as he is aware of the fact that Sienar’s motivation originates from the fact that the man is in love with his own comfort and wishes to be able to indulge himself in the various pleasures that can be found by challenging himself, the extent of his genius, in the constant envisionment, perfection, and production of myriad exceptional and profitable projects. However, Grievous is also aware of the fact that Sienar is, despite his particular trade, not a man who enjoys the actualities involved in violence or who is even particularly comfortable with abstract notions of violence. The man prefers theoreticals - detailed plans, schematics, and technically functional but either practically unworkable or else quite small-scaled and therefore extremely low-powered models - to actually having to get his hands dirty. If Grievous were to ask Sienar to actually see to it that one of his particular theoretical plans were put into motion, it is entirely possible that the man would balk.

Fortunately, though, the plans for this particular project have already been so thoroughly and meticulously prepared, tested, and detailed that it is no longer a practical necessity for Sienar to physically work on or even oversee the project’s progress in order to guarantee it’s eventual functional completion. Grievous has seen to that himself, as a precaution. Just in case his other plans fell through - as they now patently seem to have done. And, as they say, Sienar can’t protest what he doesn’t know. All in all, then, the plan should prove to be a viable one. He has certainly put enough time and effort into the cultivation of this plan to make it so. Grievous had recognized the potential usefulness of Sienar’s particular genius almost immediately upon making the man’s acquaintance. That had been literally right before the war began, with the Battle of Geonosis. He had been present on Geonosis for most of the crucial events leading up to the fight, and although Sidious and Dooku had been quite careful to keep his existence a secret from both the two Jedi interlopers and that meddlesome bitch of a Senator, Amidala, he had been allowed to sit in on most of the planning responsible for triggering the battle. Dooku had invited two very important visitors to the plant on Geonosis, just prior to the arrival of first Kenobi and then Skywalker and Amidala, and Grievous had been on hand to meet both of these men.

By some quirk of chance, Raith Sienar of the immensely powerful and profitable Sienar Systems conglomerate and Commander Tarkin of the Republic Outland Regions Security Force so closely resemble each other that they could easily be mistaken for brothers. Both men are slim and wiry, with dark hair, high-arcing bony brows, piercing blue eyes, aristocratic features, and attitudes to match. Both men had been in their early forties when they made their visit to the plant on Geonosis and General Grievous had first made their acquaintance. Moreover, both men had - despite the nature of their business on Geonosis - been wearing robes of senatorial favor, all but flaunting what had been deemed extraordinary service to the Republic Senate in recent years. Yet, despite their close resemblance to one another - Sienar is just noticeably taller, Tarkin just noticeably thinner, but the two men are both from old monied Coruscanti families, and it is entirely possible that, at some point in the distant past, the same root stock gave birth to the lines that have culminated in both of their families - Grievous has never had any difficulties in telling the two men apart. The minds and outlooks of the two men are distinctly dissimilar. Tarkin is a military man who strictly endorses the school of brute force, a coldly ruthless power-monger who apparently honestly believes that honor is something that can be bought, with enough personal power, and a bald-faced human-elitist without an original or imaginative bone in his body. Sienar, on the other hand, is a man who respects and rewards talent, ability, and results over such things as species or family bloodlines, and although he has apparently limited and even compromised the nature of his genius, in the pursuit of specific order or tasks for certain well-paying and connected clients, the fact remains that Sienar is a true visionary, a luminary in the realms of transport design and weaponry.

Although Tarkin had managed to claim the lion’s share of approbation, by claiming that he was the one responsible for making knowledge of a particular set of design plans known to Sidious, by taking a risk on Sienar and seeking to enlist him in their cause, it had been obvious to Grievous that Raith Sienar was solely responsible for the existence of the "Expeditionary Battle Planetoid" plans - which had so thoroughly entranced Sidious that he is still, as far as Grievous knows, seriously planning on seeing to it that the plans are followed and the combination weapon and transport is successfully built - in the first place. It had also been quite obvious to Grievous, from the way Sienar inevitably involuntarily reacted with disfavor or discontent to any favorable mention of those plans that Sienar thought that the plans were overrated. Intrigued by a man who could so thoroughly dismiss such an undeniably powerful creation - a creation of his own mind, no less - Grievous had sought to discover the reason behind Sienar’s dissatisfaction with that particular weaponized ship. It had soon become clear that Raith Sienar is a man who - much like Count Dooku - prefers restrained elegance, artful finesse, and pinpoint expressions of power over the more melodramatic bombast of size and brute force. Sienar had considered another of his as yet not fully fulfilled pet projects a far more worthy and potentially insidious undertaking, one that actually revealed both ingenuity and some care in execution: a landing pod that was designed to invade the metal-bearing asteroids of an unexploited star system and set up shop, making small invasion droids out of the raw ore in the asteroids.

Through careful probing, Grievous had eventually discovered that Sienar had actually attempted the plan, once; however, even though the mining equipment had been very well made, the unit had ultimately failed in the finesse of its droid factories, in that less than one out of a hundred of the droids produced had proven functional. Despite this early failure, though, Sienar had continued to think about this approach - creating a machine to make more machines, all of them programmed to carry out offensive strategies - quite often. Unfortunately, as Sienar had explained it, the Galactic Republic had too many scruples and concerns about the possibilities of machine intelligence to show much interest in such weapons, and his corporation’s other big customers - such as, for example, the Neimoidian leaders in the Trade Federation - had rejected them out of hand as impractical. Not much imagination there, at least as of a few years ago, as Sienar had put it . . . Hence, the man’s initial openness to Tarkin, when the Commander had approached him to sound him out for Dooku (and therefore, in all truth, for Darth Sidious, since Sidious’ wishes took precedent over Dooku’s preferences). Although uninterested in becoming a public member of the Separatist movement, Sienar’s fascination with the Geonosians’ work, in the creation of Grievous, and the possible implications for and even applications of some of their theories in the realm of droid production had been sufficient to make him an unofficial supplier of even more advanced weaponry and ships for the Separatist cause. And Grievous, meanwhile, had carefully encouraged Sienar’s particular personal obsession and kept track of the man’s progress on the project. Just in case.

It was Sienar - and his interest in increasing the intelligence and, thus, the functionality of certain types of droid units - who had been largely responsible for the creation of the General’s personal bodyguards, the IG-100s, back when Grievous was still a Kaleesh warrior working for the IBC. It was that practical breakthrough - in the creation of a droid capable not only of linearly processing raw data but of learning holistically during the acquisition of new knowledge, a droid capable of adapting in order to successfully complete programmed orders, one fashioned to have a conform to a specific personality type and to vigorously pursue a range of activities associated with that personality - in combination with Sienar’s unique perspective on the data gathered from the mostly successful transferral of Grievous to his cyborg body, that had finally allowed Sienar to solve the problems that had doomed his original endeavor to failure. However, it had also been that success - and Sienar’s subsequent extreme discomfort with the all too human machismo, aggression, and predilection for violence exhibited by the IG-100s, after Grievous had been allowed to train them to his specifications - that had prompted him to essentially drop the project. By that time, though, Grievous had been aware of the fact that the project was workable. Sienar might have been content to leave the project unfinished, but Grievous had been all too aware of the plan’s potential usefulness to him to simply abandon it. The Republic might not have been interested in the idea because its puny and small-minded citizens distrusted the notion of intelligent machines, and the Separatists may not have known anything about it because Lord Sidious preferred the idea of creating one overwhelming terror-inducing superweapon. However, being more than half machine, himself, Grievous could not fail to see the potential usefulness of a foe as implacable and potentially numerous as that of an army of self-creating and rapidly self-replicating, aggressive, elitist, anti-Jedi, anti-Republic (and, if necessary, anti-biological) droids, if Sidious’ war ended up failing to destroy the Jedi and Republic for any reason.

Grievous had, therefore, taken his meticulous records of all of Sienar’s findings and plans - all very carefully secretly gathered and verified - and preserved them as a reserve backup plan, in the event that his alliance with Lord Sidious and the coincidence of his own personal goals and views with those of Count Dooku both ever fell through. Given the fact that Dooku is gone and the failure of Sidious’ war now seems imminent, it would be logical to see to it that the necessary steps are taken to ensure that this backup plan is put into motion, and that Grievous’ version of Raith Sienar’s project can be launched before the Jedi invade Utapau and spring Sidious’ trap.

Nodding once, decisively, General Grievous turns about to face the control center, and then reaches out to activate a very specific comlink channel. "IG-103? Bring the other MagnaGuards and report to the viewport for new orders. There’s been a change of plans."

*********

The endless nightscape of Coruscant is still burning.

Coruscant at night has always been an endless galaxy of light. Though no stars are visible from the surface of Coruscant, light in aplenty has always shone from the trillions of windows of the billions of buildings that reach kilometers into the sky, with navigation lights and advertising and the infinite streams of the running lights of various ships and speeders coursing through the seemingly endless rivers of traffic lanes overhead and in amongst those buildings. On this night, however, various power outages have swallowed up ragged swathes of the city into vast nebulae of darkness, a darkness broken only by the malignant red-dwarf glares of innumerable still furiously burning fires and the smouldering remains of crashed debris and smashed buildings, sullenly glowing like the cindery remains of burnt out supernovae. The entire planet looks damaged. Broken by battle. Irreparably stained with darkness.

Depowered lampdisks are little more than rings of ghostly gray floating in the gloom that overlooks the broken cityscape. The badly ravaged and still burning shimmering jewelscape of Coruscant haloes the knife-edged shadow of the lone occupied chair in the private office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. For the two Jedi responsible for the Chancellor’s safe return to this office, there would be a new harmonic resonance, an odd and almost accidental seeming echo of memory, at work within the curving viewing wall that throws the Chancellor’s single large chair into razor sharp silhouette. Anyone who has been within the General’s Quarters of Invisible Hand would understand why, though.

Palpatine’s private office is arrayed in much the same fashion as that room once was.

And within the shadow of that single chair there currently sits another shadow: deeper, darker, formless, and impenetrable, an abyssal umbra so profound that it drains light from the room around it.

And from the city.

And the planet.

And the galaxy.

The shadow waits. The shadow is always waiting. For a change, a chance to strike at a suddenly revealed chink in another’s armor, a moment of weakness to take advantage of, a sign that the many long years of quiet, behind the scenes manipulation and masterful Machiavellian machinations will soon bear the ultimate fruit.

The Coruscant nightfall is swiftly spreading throughout the known galaxy. Soon, it seems, it will engulf the galaxy whole. But neither the physical darkness nor the metaphysical taint of darkness upon the Force is a hindrance to the shadow within the Chancellor’s office. The shadow is darkness. Wherever darkness dwells, the shadow can send perception. In the shrouding night, the shadow feels the anguish that drenches the city-planet, and it is good. The shadow feels the grim determination of obstinate and obsolete Jedi who have their eyes fixed so firmly upon the future that they cannot see the danger of their present position, snared thoroughly within a dark trap of the shadow’s devising. This, too, is good. As a small Jedi shuttle settles onto the landing deck outside, the shadow sends its mind caressingly within the far deeper night within one of the several pieces of sculpture that grace the sanctity of this private inner office: an abstract twist of solid neuranium, so heavy that the office floor had to be specially reinforced to bear its weight, so dense that more sensitive species might, from very close range, actually perceive the tiny warping of the fabric of space-time that is its gravitation. Neuranium of more than roughly a millimeter in thickness is impervious to sensors; the standard security scans undergone by all equipment and furniture to enter the Senate Office Building had therefore, naturally, shown nothing at all. If anyone had thought to use an advanced gravimetric detector, however, they might have discovered that one smallish section of the sculpture massed slightly less than it should have, given that the manifest that accompanied it, when it had been brought from Naboo among the then-ambassador’s personal effects, had clearly stated that it was a single piece of solid-forged neuranium. That manifest was a lie, though. The sculpture is not entirely solid, and not all of it is neuranium. Within a long, slim, rod-shaped cavity around which the sculpture had originally been forged, there rests a device that has lain, waiting, in absolute darkness - darkness beyond darkness - for decades.

Waiting for night to fall on the Republic.

Waiting, like the shadow itself waits.

The darkness within the sculpture whispers of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradles. With but a twist of will, the shadow could trigger the device. The shadow longs to trigger the device. It has been waiting to trigger the device for much longer than it has ever dreamed that it would have to wait.

And yet the shadow simply continues to wait. Like the generous dark, the shadow is patient and inevitable. It can afford to be generous with its patience. It can afford to keep waiting for a little while longer, until true darkness, true Dark, has fallen. The shadow has already successfully seeded cruelty into justice, dripped contempt into compassion, poisoned love with grains of doubt. Why should it not simply wait? The slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. And the rain will come, inevitably, just as those seeds will sprout, for dark is the soil in which they have been planted and dark is the shadow that will feed them as they grow. Darkness it is in the clouds above them, and darkness that waits behind the stars that give them light, give them life.

The shadow’s patience, like the dark’s, is infinite.

Eventually, even stars burn out.

Inevitably, the shadow, like the darkness, will win, as always.

After all, darkness always wins, since it is everywhere.

It is in the wood that burns in the hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under the chair and underneath the table and beneath the sheets on the bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark will, as ever, follow, attached to the soles of one’s very feet.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

And the night that even now holds the brilliance of the Jedi Temple within its dark embrace will soon become the darkness of eternity.

Or so the shadow firmly believes.

But the shadow does not see everything.

The shadow does not see everything because it cannot see clearly.

The shadow cannot see clearly because it is blinded by the dark dazzle of future plans.

The shadow, wrapped within the dark, rapt, is blind to the dangerous light of the present.

The dark may very well be patient, and generous, and it may even always win . . . but in the very heart of its strength lies its greatest weakness: the light of one lone candle is enough to hold it back.

Love is much more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.

And even stars that have gone dead can be made to burn.

*********

For what seems like the hundredth time since their plans were finalized back at the Temple, Anakin twitches, frowns, fidgets with the leather glove that is hiding the fact that the Force has restored his arm, and plaintively asks, "Are you sure this is a good idea? I know it must be tonight, but - "

"Everything will be alright, Anakin. Do please stop fretting," Obi-Wan sighs. "You know that the Chancellor has the entire place wired. Masters Dooku and Qui-Gon will trip the holorecordings and the audio and then burn out the switches so that he cannot disconnect them and there will be no way of tampering with the evidence. Then we will go in: together. He will doubtlessly try to sway you to his side, Anakin, and to turn me against you by informing me of your ‘secrets.’ As long as we remain calm and do not allow him to goad us, we will retain the upper hand. He will not understand why he cannot set us upon each other and it should distract him sufficiently that we ought to be able to save Master Windu when he arrives. Since Dooku and Qui-Gon’s manifestation will doubtlessly provoke him into providing us with any remaining evidence that we might need, the confrontation can be ended as soon as Master Windu is safe. If it is at all possible, it will be a swift blow to the head instead of a killing blow, and then the strength of the four of us combined will be more than enough to sever his connection the Force. If he fights, then we will simply have to do better than he does. We will burn away his darkness, one way or the other. For Sidious, it ends here, tonight. You know that it must. And it will. We must not fail and so we will not."

"I know that Master. Truly, I do. I just . . . worry. He’s very powerful."

"Anakin . . . " A soft sigh and a long-drawn breath, and then Obi-Wan is turning around and placing his left hand gently over Anakin’s cheek, the gesture only slightly marred by the automatic twitch of fingers towards a braid that no longer dangles beside the curve of that beloved face. "I am no longer your Master, love. I have no desire to be your Master, all things considered. And you have already earned the right to claim that title yourself, in my mind. Please, call me Obi-Wan."

Anakin’s smile is blazingly bright, even if his gaze is suddenly shy as the long fringe of his lashes falls across his eyes. "I know that, Obi-Wan. Truly. And I understand. I just," he shrugs, and then covers Obi-Wan’s hand with his own, "I like to call you that. And I like it when you slip and call me Padawan. It reminds me that I’m yours and you’re mine."

Obi-Wan’s laughter is low and almost husky. "Oh, Anakin. Love, soon none will be left who will dare to doubt that, no matter what we call one another. And besides, I like to hear you call my name."

Anakin’s smile is almost a smirk. "Is that a pun, Obi-Wan? Because if it is - "

"What? You’ll," Obi-Wan raises a suggestive eyebrow and suddenly steps very close, purposefully invading Anakin’s personal space, so close that they are almost touching all along their fronts, only the barest sliver of space between their bodies, "groan?"

"Master!" Anakin gasps, shocked. "I thought you said - "

"But I have listened to others, Anakin. I believe I understand how it is done, this," another eyebrow goes up, and Obi-Wan’s smile so closely resembles Anakin’s trademark smirk that it is clear he has spent quite a bit of time studying it, "flirting."

Chuckling, Anakin presses Obi-Wan back into the shadow of a great pillar stretching up into the greater darkness that leaks through the vaulted roof of transparisteel over the Atrium of the Senate Office Building, near the archway from the Supreme Chancellor’s private - yet, also, conveniently, given specific clearance for Anakin Skywalker - landing platform, backing him up until Obi-Wan meets the pillar itself and Anakin can cover his slighter form with his own body. Their arms are around each other then, Obi-Wan’s face automatically turning up towards Anakin even as he leans down, and their mouths find each other’s as the universe becomes, for a few long breathless moments, perfect.

After an all too brief eternity of bliss, the kiss ends as their lips part. Smiling, relaxed and no longer a fidgeting, anxious mass of twitches and repetitive questions, Anakin whispers, his mouth so close to Obi-Wan’s ear that it is almost touching it, almost kissing it, "I believe that you understand very well, Obi-Wan. And you will hear me cry your name many, many, many times," he promises, laughing.

"Good. Because I look forward to learning how to make you groan and cry for me."

The promise in Obi-Wan’s heavy-lidded eyes leaves Anakin breathless. Several more too short eternities and kisses later, Anakin groans and allows his head to fall against the pillar, pressing his forehead against its smooth, chill surface. "I think - I think I am distracted enough to cease worrying now. Any more distraction, and we might not get any further than this pillar tonight, Obi-Wan."

Smiling over Anakin’s shoulder, Obi-Wan merely hums with pleasure for a moment, so relaxed that he feels as if his bones have dissolved within him. After a moment, though, his arms release their hold around Anakin’s neck and slide loosely down his back to encircle his waist. "Alright then, love. No more distractions. We will go on."

"Together."

"Always."

*********

[The following is a transcript of an audio recording presented before the Galactic Senate on the afternoon of the first Amnesty Day, the identities of all speakers verified and confirmed by voiceprint analysis]

PALPATINE: Anakin, my dear boy! Do come in.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I am afraid that I am not Anakin, but I shall come in.

PALPATINE: I’m sorry? Forgive me, General Kenobi, when I saw the shuttle land I assumed that it was Anakin. What brings to my office at this hour? Is there something that I can do for you?

[sound of a chair being rolled]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You can cease playing games.

PALPATINE: I beg your pardon, Master Jedi?

[sound of a drawer being shut]

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: You heard what he said. You can cease playing games. We know who you are. We know what you are. We are here to take you into custody.

[sound of a door being firmly shut]

PALPATINE: I - I beg your pardon? What I am? My dear boy, when last I checked, I was the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic that you are both sworn to serve. I hope I misunderstand what you mean by custody, Anakin. It smacks of treason. I know that Obi-Wan was your Master and you are loyal to him, but -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: That is neither here nor there. I am a Jedi Knight: I am sworn to defend the Galactic Republic. It is because of these things that I am here.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You are under arrest. Surrender to us now and things will go easier for you. If you resist, we will fight.

PALPATINE: Really, Master Kenobi, you cannot be serious! On what charge? Anakin -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You are an enemy of democracy who has committed unspeakable crimes against the Republic you swore to protect and serve, and you are under arrest. Your reign of darkness is over, Lord.

PALPATINE: I - ?! Anakin Skywalker! What do you think you are doing here, standing with this man, against me? I am your friend!

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: You are a Sith Lord.

. . .

PALPATINE: Am I? Even if that is true, I am still your friend, Anakin. I am still the man who has always been here for you. I am the man you have never needed to lie to. I am the man who has steadfastly kept all of your secrets. And I am the man who wants nothing from you but that you follow your conscience. If that conscience requires you to commit murder, simply over a . . . a philosophical difference . . . then I will not resist you.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Murder? You must be hard of hearing. I said that you are under arrest. That means that you will be given a fair trial.

PALPATINE: A fair - ! For what? My philosophical outlook is a personal matter. It is hardly a crime! In fact - the last time I read the Constitution, anyway - the Republic had very strict laws against this type of persecution. So I ask you again: what is my alleged crime? How do you expect to justify your mutiny before the Senate? Or do you intend to arrest the Senate as well?

OBI-WAN KENOBI: For a man who says that he will not resist, you are doing a fair job of trying to prevent your arrest. We are not here to argue with you.

PALPATINE: No, you’re here to imprison me without trial and for no reason! Without even the pretense of legality. So this is the plan, at last: the Jedi are taking over the Republic. I should have known that it would happen this way!

[sound of a fist crashing down against a solid surface, possibly a desk]

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Don’t be ridiculous. We have said that you are under arrest and that you will be given a fair trial. You are the only one who speaks of murder and persecution. I suppose I ought to expect nothing else. You are a Sith Lord, and treachery is the way of the Sith.

PALPATINE: Anakin, when I told you that you could have anything you want, did you believe that I was excluding my life? Do you not think I would lay down my life to protect you? To protect those you love? To protect -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Really, I must insist. This verbosity feels an awful lot like a delaying tactic.

PALPATINE: I was not speaking to you!

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I am aware of whom you were speaking to. It will do you no good.

PALPATINE: Unlike some, Master Jedi, Anakin Skywalker is a good and loyal man with a warm and caring heart! Anakin! You will not let this happen to me! You will not allow this -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: I intend to do much more than allow. I intend to aid in your arrest!

PALPATINE: Oh, Anakin, Anakin, why didn’t you listen to me on the ship? You must know that I only have your best interests at heart, my boy! Didn’t I tell you that we should stop pretending? Didn’t I tell you that the final crisis was approaching, that our only hope to survive it would be for us to be completely, absolutely, ruthlessly honest with each other and ourselves? Didn’t I tell you that what is at stake is nothing less than the fate of the galaxy? Anakin, Anakin, listen to me now! You are not like them, Anakin! You’re a man, not just a Jedi. You’ve been trained to never question what the Jedi tell you to do, to be. They’ve never given you a choice at all. But you are different, Anakin. You had a real life, outside the Jedi Temple. You have a life, outside of the Jedi Temple, if only you will be brave enough to remain true to your heart and take it! You can break through the fog of lies that the Jedi have pumped into your brain, Anakin. Anakin, remember what I asked you on the ship! My offer still holds. My generosity can be even more powerful than my loyalty, Anakin. Have I not been loyal to you? Have I not -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?

PALPATINE: I am not speaking to you, Jedi traitor! I am speaking to Anakin Skywalker, who would rather die than to hurt or betray a friend! Who would -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: You are no friend of mine.

PALPATINE: Anakin! Anakin, what are you saying? Of course I am your friend! Have I not always been here, a willing ear in which you could safely pour your problems? Have I not always listened to you and given you advice and striven to see you excel? Have I not always kept your secrets, even your most terrible -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You really can’t wait to spill these so-called secrets, can you? Well, come on then, out with them! We really haven’t got all night to listen to your filibustering.

PALPATINE: They are Anakin’s secrets! How dare you ask me to tell you of them! Anakin, I would never -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Oh, Sith hells, you might as well tell him! I can see you’ll never shut up unless you’re allowed to speak of these deep, dark secrets of mine you’ve supposedly been keeping - though how you’ve kept anything a secret when you so obviously love to talk is entirely beyond me!

PALPATINE: I - I - Anakin! You can’t mean -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Don’t presume to tell me what I do and do not mean. I know exactly what I am asking of you. And I say to you again: you may as well get it over with and tell the man. Obviously, you’re dying to tell, and we won’t get you to be quiet or to act reasonably unless we let you get this out of your system. So go ahead. Do it. Tell him.

PALPATINE: But Anakin - !

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Really. I insist. Go ahead and tell him.

PALPATINE: But - !

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Tell him, by the Force, or I shall do it for you!

[sound of a body collapsing into a chair]

PALPATINE: I - I - I - Very well, then. If that is what you want. If that is what it will take for me to prove my loyalty to you, then I will tell him. Master Kenobi, I am afraid that I have some grave news. Your former Padawan learner is a murderer.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Oh, really? This is news? In case you haven’t noticed, Anakin is a Jedi and we have been fighting a very nasty war for the past three years.

PALPATINE: No, no, no! That’s not it at all! I did not say that the boy has killed: I said that he was a murderer! When he was thirteen -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: If you’re about to tell me of the death of the Blood Carver Ke Daiv - who was sent by one of your operatives, to secure one of the living Zonama Sekot ships, at any cost, even the life or lives of the ship’s pilot or pilots - then allow me assure you that I know all about it. Anakin has felt unwarranted guilt over this for years. Naturally. It was his first kill in direct combat. But it was also purely in self-defense.

PALPATINE: Master Jedi -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: And yes, I know that he used the Force to kill the Blood Carver. Since he had been taken prisoner and Ke Daiv was threatening to kill the Magister’s young daughter, Jabitha, he really had no other choice.

PALPATINE: If you do not wish to listen, then you will not hear. But on Tatooine, before the Battle of Geonosis -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: What, the Tusken Raiders? They tortured and murdered Anakin’s mother, Shmi Skywalker Lars. That particular tribe had already raided several moisture farms in the surrounding area, killing and looting as they went, and they often kidnaped and then brutalized to death members of settlements that were strong enough to offer up resistance. They did not seek to surrender and they would not stopped their raiding, even if Anakin alone could have safely disarmed them all and then forced them to surrender. It was a regrettable incident and I fear that Anakin was not in the proper frame of mind to be entirely nonjudgmental, but he had no other choice. He could not have escaped with Shmi’s body undetected. And his actions protected the lives of many other innocents who would have otherwise perished at the brutal hands of those Tusken Raiders.

PALPATINE: Count Dooku -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Count Dooku? Really! You’re truly reaching, considering the fact that you ordered Anakin to cut the man down in cold blood after he had been disarmed and had already cried out for mercy!

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: I am truly amazed. You honestly thought that I had secrets from Obi-Wan, didn’t you? You honestly believed that I could keep anything a secret from the man who has been my Master and my one true friend and companion for the past thirteen years!

[sounds of disbelieving laughter]

PALPATINE: I know of at least one secret you have kept from Obi-Wan, my boy! You have to have kept it from him, or there is no way that you could still be a member of the Jedi Order. The High Council would never allow anyone - even the Chosen One - to remain an active member of the Jedi Order after he had broken such a rule. General Kenobi! I am afraid that I must inform you that your former Padawan learner has been living a double life. Furthermore, I fear I must inform you that his life within the Jedi Temple has been little more than an empty sham, a lie, even. Anakin Skywalker has been married to Padmé Amidala Naberrie almost ever since this war began. He married her after the Battle of Geonosis and -

[sounds of incredulous laughter]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Married? Married! And to a Senator, no less! Honestly, Sidious, Anakin loathes politics! There are very few politicians that he can stand at all and I assure you that none of them are sharing his bed!

[sound of a distinctive snort]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Married indeed . . .

PALPATINE: Master Jedi, I assure you -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: No. I assure you, Lord Sidious. I am no more married than Master Windu is your secret sex slave.

[sound of a distinctive snort and then a brief grumbling mutter, too low for any words to be clearly identified]

PALPATINE: You secretly wed Padmé Amidala Naberrie after Geonosis, in Theed, when you returned her to her planet! Master Kenobi, you can go and ask the girl yourself if you do not believe me! The two -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I most certainly can not ask that poor child anything! You sick, pathetic, murderous monster! Senator Padmé Amidala Naberrie was murdered in the attack on Coruscant. She died because she remained behind with Senators Mon Mothma and Bail Organa to try to determine where you were and whether or not you were safely out of range of danger from the attack, seeing as how you had not followed your evacuation procedure - since, of course, you masterminded the entire attack as a way to set up and betray Count Dooku so that the Jedi would do your dirty work and kill him for you. While you simply waited in your office, those brave Senators delayed to speak to Masters Stass Allie and Shaak Ti about your possible whereabouts and to help them try to determine where you could be, and because of that they were caught up in the attack, and a vulture droid crashed into their skimmer. Padmé was killed, Bail Organa was so seriously injured that he was almost assumed dead, and as for Mon Mothma, well, I can only assume that the only reason she did not stay in the hospital herself was due to the fact that she thought someone more seriously injured than she deserved the bed.

PALPATINE: There are - there are records -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: There are no records. I am not married. You are delusional.

[sounds of incoherent sputtering]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Now then, you’ve had your chance to talk. You are going to come with us, Darth Sidious. Now.

PALPATINE: I shall do no such thing! If you intend to murder me, you can do so right here.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Do try not to be so tiresome! How many times must we tell you this: you are under arrest. We are here to arrest you so that you may be put on trial for your treason. Please, don’t resist. We will fight if you force us to.

[sounds that have been identified by frequency resonances to be the ignition of several lightsabers]

PALPATINE: Resist? How could I possibly resist? This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you?

[sounds of scuffle; crackling explosion, as of a lightning strike]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Dooku - !

COUNT DOOKU OF SERENNO, JEDI MASTER: [garbled; possibly "It doesn’t hurt, young one" (?)]

[sounds of scuffle]

PALPATINE: Help! Help! Security - someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!

COUNT DOOKU OF SERENNO, JEDI MASTER: Oh, cease your ridiculous dramatics, Sidious! This is most certainly not murder, nor is it treason! It was treason when you ordered Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas to place the order for the clone armies and then ordered me to murder him so that he could not report on the success of his secret mission for you to either the Jedi High Council or the Galactic Senate; it was treason when you plotted with the Trade Federation to blockade and then invade Naboo; it was treason when you plotted with me to create the Confederacy of Independent Systems and then sought to sacrifice the life of Senator Amidala to win the Senate’s approval to seize control of the clone armies in the name of the Republic and begin these Clone Wars; and it was most certainly treason when you ordered General Grievous to assemble the Separatist fleets and attack Coruscant. This, on the other hand: this is justice.

JEDI MASTER QUI-GON JINN: A justice that you have escaped far too long, Lord Sidious. Surrender! Drop that lightsaber or by the Force I will see to it that you know what it feels like to be skewered upon one, just as your earlier apprentice, Darth Maul, once skewered me, on Naboo!

[recording ends]

*********

His Serene Highness, Prince Bail Prestor Organa, Senator, First Chairman, and Viceroy of Alderaan, is a deeply good and compassionate man. Pragmatic, yes, but idealistic enough to have never wavered over his beliefs - not even in an era where such beliefs have rapidly come close to skirting the edge of "treason," according to the dictates of the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic - and brave enough to be willing to fight for those beliefs, for the preservation of those ideals, even if it means finally crossing that line into treason against an increasingly dangerously corrupt and totalitarian government. Incredibly proud to consider himself a good friend of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s and loyal to the ideals of the Jedi Order - even though his disappointment in that Order’s growing inability to adhere to those ideals burns him to the core - for several years now Bail has been fighting against the insidious transformation of his beloved Republic in the only ways that he knows how: by planning ahead for what he believes will be the worst; by gathering allies and information everywhere that he can; and by seeking to stem the tide in every way that he can without being branded a traitor and losing his ready access to the various powers within the Republic.

Although Bail is a deeply honest man, in this matter his pragmatism far outweighs his idealism: Senator Organa champions many benevolent causes, such as the Refugee Relief Movement, and he has been known to start and to present more than one petition to the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, protesting what he feels to be inappropriate measures taken by that Office over the course of the war, but he is also very, very careful not to take too outspoken or too public a stance against Palpatine. Bail understands the value of the information he can gather from his privileged position and the greater good that he can accomplish by working mainly behind the scenes, and so he is extremely careful not to attract Palpatine’s wrath. Yet, Bail Organa also takes particular care to be and remain one of the Jedi’s most loyal and reliable sources of information regarding Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s steady appropriation of more and more power from the Senate and the increasing pressure the Chancellor has brought to bear upon the Republic’s Constitution, twisting it further and further out of true. Thus, Bail Organa is also the source who provided Jedi Master Mace Windu with the disturbing information about the danger of the amendment that is to propose placing the Jedi High Council under the control of the Office of the Supreme Chancellor.

Bail is an enormously charismatic, empathetic, sympathetic man. His family is prone to Force-sensitivity, and Mace Windu believes that it is a pity the man’s parents considered him to be too close to the line of ascendency - a lineage that eventually saw him elected the Viceroy of Alderaan - to send him to the Jedi Temple for training. He could have been a truly powerful Jedi, given the proper training. The man is certainly courageous and selfless enough to have made an excellent Knight, despite the fact that he is constantly surrounded by and obviously accustomed to the lap of luxury. Ever since Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, his then eighteen-year-old Padawan learner, had first brought the seemingly entirely too young Alderaanian Senator to the attention of the Jedi Council, Mace Windu has developed a certain . . . fondness for the Prince, the fondness of a man who recognizes a kindred soul, someone whose heart is filled with the same devotion and weighed upon by many of the same cares and anxieties as his own. A Jedi is not supposed to not dwell overmuch upon the past, and therefore should not harbor regrets, but Mace believes that it is acceptable for him to regard the young Prince with a certain . . . fond wistfulness, considering both the good man that he is and what the man might also have been, had he been allowed to train as a Jedi.

So when the Senator does not show up for a meeting that he was quite insistent about making with Mace for this evening and Mace cannot track the man down, unable even to make contact with any of the Alderaanian aides or junior Senators who might have been able to inform Mace of the whereabouts and condition of their Viceroy and Prince, Mace Windu is stricken with a sudden sense of powerful worry, worry that he is unaccustomed to experiencing for Senators or indeed for many individuals at all. Distracted by that worry, distracted by his earlier discussions with Masters Yoda and Kenobi and by Master Kenobi’s confounding, persistent, and unseemly (for a Jedi) loyalty to Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu makes one of the few spur of the moment, not thoroughly planned and thought out decisions of his life. He decides that he will go to the Senate Rotunda, see if Chancellor Palpatine is still in his office, and seek to question the man about Senator Organa’s possible whereabouts as well as to try to speak to Palpatine once more about what the loss of Count Dooku will mean to the Separatists. No sooner has Mace come to this sudden decision than he is out of the Temple and upon one of the many small Jedi transports, speeding off towards his destination - a destination that he reaches all too quickly.

Curiously, there is a Jedi shuttle docked at the Chancellor’s private landing platform.

As he stands there, mulling over this puzzle, Mace Windu is abruptly stricken with an almost cripplingly powerful bad feeling about this. His hand is on his lightsaber and he is running into the building and up towards the Chancellor’s private office before he has any time to think, acting on instinct alone, his footfalls silent on the elaborate inlay of Alderaanian marble as he cuts quickly through the vast echoing emptiness of the vaulted halls.

Yet, even as Mace Windu cuts with desperate swiftness up through the building to the private office of the Supreme Chancellor, the shadow within that office is, with a simple twist of will, triggering the device that has rested, undisturbed, for decades within the abstract twist of neuranium that has been mistaken by all who have seen it as a harmless piece of sculpture. Even as Mace Windu storms up through the immense, deserted hallways, the neuranium gets warm and a small round spot on its back - on a section of the neuranium that cannot be seen except for by someone seated in or standing very near to the chair that graces the Chancellor’s desk - smaller than the circle a human child might make of thumb and forefinger together, turns first the rusty shade of old blood, then the vivid hue of fresh blood, and then the searing color of an open flame. Finally, a spear of scarlet energy lances free of the neuranium, drawing with it from out of the darkness the device that the neuranium has so faithfully cradled, hidden within its depths, for so very many years, part of the object twisting away, breaking off to vanish up the shadow of a long, dark, full sleeve while the remainder lengthens into a fiery blade that paints the office with the sanguinary color of stars seen through the smoke of burning planets. Even as Mace Windu tears into the first of many holding offices that separate the rest of the Senate Building from the actual offices and inner sanctum of the Supreme Chancellor, the shadow within the guise of Palpatine of Naboo wholly claims a lightsaber whose blade is the molten hue of a dying planet, self-immolated and consumed in fire, and attacks.

As he passes into the actual offices of the Chancellor, his Force-augmented speed so great that he is little more than a swiftly passing blur on the security holorecordings, Mace Windu hears Obi-Wan Kenobi screaming, "Dooku!" as if he is being forced to watch the death of hope itself.

And amazingly, as he falls out of his mad blind dash, staggering with the sudden shock of a blast of what feels like absolute, unadulterated evil, ripping out through the Force like a jagged scream, he hears Dooku - Dooku as he was within the Order, his voice epitomizing calm and compassion, nothing at all like he has been of late, as the leader of the Separatists - answer: "It doesn’t hurt, young one."

Palpatine is screaming: "Help! Help! Security - someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!"

Dooku answers with the commanding voice of a Jedi Master. "Oh, cease your ridiculous dramatics, Sidious! This is most certainly not murder, nor is it treason! It was treason when you ordered Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas to place the order for the clone armies and then ordered me to murder him so that he could not report on the success of his secret mission for you to either the Jedi High Council or the Galactic Senate; it was treason when you plotted with the Trade Federation to blockade and then invade Naboo; it was treason when you plotted with me to create the Confederacy of Independent Systems and then sought to sacrifice the life of Senator Amidala to win the Senate’s approval to seize control of the clone armies in the name of the Republic and begin these Clone Wars; and it was most certainly treason when you ordered General Grievous to assemble the Separatist fleets and attack Coruscant. This, on the other hand: this is justice."

While Mace Windu grabs blindly for the nearest wall, locking his knees so that he will not fall, the final of a series of rapid shocks comes in the unmistakable powerful voice of a long dead friend, driving him to the ground.

The lilting and slightly accented deep rumble of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn declares, "A justice that you have escaped far too long, Lord Sidious. Surrender! Drop that lightsaber or by the Force I will see to it that you know what it feels like to be skewered upon one, just as your earlier apprentice, Darth Maul, once skewered me, on Naboo!"

This is the moment that defines Mace Windu.

Not the consummate skill with which he has achieved countless victories in battle, nor the numberless battles his ponderously careful diplomacy has avoided. Not his penetrating intellect, nor his talents with the Force, nor his unmatched ability with the lightsaber. Not his dedication to the Jedi Order, or his devotion to the Republic that he serves.

But this.

Right here.

Right now.

Because Mace Windu, too, has an attachment. Mace has a secret love.

Mace Windu loves the Galactic Republic.

Many of his students quote him when speaking to students of their own: "Jedi do not fight for peace. That is only a slogan, and it is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace."

For Mace Windu, for all his life, for all the lives of a thousand years of Jedi before him, true civilization has had only one true name: the Galactic Republic. And he has given his life in the service of the Galactic Republic, which he loves. Mace has taken lives in its service, and lost the lives of innocents. He has seen beings whom he cares for maimed, and killed, and sometimes brought to even worse straits than that - sometimes so broken by the horror of the struggle that the only answer they have been able to find lay in committing greater horrors still.

And because of that love now, here, in this instant, the nine words that manage to push their way past the shock of hearing the voices of two dead men within the Chancellor’s private office and into the forefront of Mace Windu’s mind shred his heart, burn its pieces, and feed him its smoking ashes.

Palpatine is Sidious. The Chancellor is the Sith Lord.

The true meaning of this revelation is far too large for his mind to gather in all at once.

It means that all he has done and all that has been done to him . . .

That all the Order has accomplished, all it has suffered . . .

All the Galactic Republic, that the galaxy itself, has gone through, all the years of suffering and slaughter, the death of entire planets . . .

It has all been for nothing.

Because all of these things have been done to save the Republic.

And the Republic is already gone.

The Republic has already fallen.

It is only the corpse of the Republic has been defended by the Order - by Jedi who have been obeying the orders of a Senate that has been under the command of a Dark Lord of the Sith.

In an instant, Mace Windu’s entire existence - which, over the course of this terrible war, has become crystal so shot through with flaws that the hammering shock of nine words alone are more than sufficient to crush him to sand - is utterly destroyed, the underpinnings of his reality so irredeemably lost that he is, in that moment, no longer a Jedi Master, no longer a champion and stalwart defender of the Galactic Republic and the ideals of peace and justice, freedom and democracy, that it champions. In that moment, he is less than nothing.

Yet, because he is Mace Windu, he takes this blow without a change of expression.

Because he is Mace Windu, within a second the man of sand is stone once more: pure Jedi Master - regardless of the fact that the Jedi Order is an empty facade and his Mastery is a hollow lie - he automatically coldly weighs the risk of facing the last Dark Lord of the Sith with what could be a second Sith or might be a Jedi ally, a man who has been thought dead for thirteen years, a Master who blazes with some strange emotion that is utterly alien to the Jedi way for his former Padawan, and quite possibly also that former Padawan learner, a boy who is so powerful that his Force-signature is so bright that it cannot be looked at straight on and so emotionally unstable that he simply cannot be trusted to do his duty when the power of his emotions acts as a potential distraction with every heartbeat.

And because he is Mace Windu, the choice is no choice at all.

Again, this scene continues immediately in the next chapter posting!